Individual results

Interviewee: Geoff Bateman

Track 1
Born Gulson Road Hospital. Lived Anchorway Road. Father a fitter on jet engines - Armstrong Siddeley. Mother at home. Three sisters, and a brother. "Ice used to freeze on the windows".

Track 2
1938 - saw aircraft overhead. "I remember the war very vividly". "We all had to eat at the table…no speaking". "Radio was the centre of the family". Father strict - the boss. Parents buying house. Mother a good athlete. Parents "Got married on the quiet" (different religions).

Track 3
Catholic / Protestant "At each other's throats" (he is an athiest). Father in left-wing politics - sports correspondent for 'Daily Worker'. Father struck in a train in a tunnel because it was being attacked by Germans. Blitz - "I was behind a sofa". Parents didn't like neighbours so didn't go to the shelters.

Track 4
Father very patriotic. Geoff was told how good it was to live in Russia! Three other communists in Anchorway Road. Opera House - cinema - films about the storming of the gates in the Russian Revolution. Saw barrage balloon in Bathway Road. Collected shrapnel.

Track 5
Infant school in Gretna Road. Collected shrapnel on the way to school - got sweets from Americans. Felt sorry for black Americans. Tanks, huts. Field in Kenpas Highway. D-Day - everything disappeared. Saw Lancaster.

Track 6
School - very strict. Green Lane School - a teacher a "dragon". Air raid shelter drill. In love with music teacher! In and out of hospital with ear problems so lost time at school. Went to Broadway School, Earlsdon.

Track 7
Failed 11+ - "Hated exams - the terror". Jazz on curriculum. Standard of teaching poor. Ex-Coventry City manager a teacher there (Broadway). After school went to Edwards the Printers - didn't like it - "cheap labour".

Track 8
"Pay very poor". Attended art school. Didn't like attitudes - "people knew their places". Became interested in cycling. Didn't enjoy the job. In printers for 4 years. Interested in aviation.

Track 9
Flight in Tiger Moth - did a zoom take off. "Got the bug". Did national service in the RAF. Vampires to RAF Honiley.

Track 10
"Terrified" in RAF (people still shouting at him!). "Quite a few people committed suicide" (the sensitive) - "Gestapa here". Accident - hole in leg so got out of doing drill. Did fire training. Five years in RAF. Went to Gaydon near Coventry.

Track 11
Posted near Lincoln. No interest in politics then. Posted to a left-wing camp. A gliding club there - he joined. Saw 7 killed…

Track 12
"Smell of flesh" (crash crew). Got cancer - radiotherapy (1961). Deaf now to some extent. "Enjoyed RAF".

Track 13
Sutton bakeries - supervisor. Gave in notice. Left home to live in Hillfields (1966). Lived in Grantham Street. Umbrella club…

Track 14
…forms of art. Jazz band - played trumpet. Standard Motor Company in 1968 (fireman). Did buying at printers. Fireman at Standard Triumph.

Track 15
Manned switchboard. Blames management for problems in industry. "You could always guarantee a strike before the Summer holiday". "Planned obsolescence was a policy" (such as rust).

Track 16
Workers manipulated by management. "Everyone on the make". "Management sleazy". Stores - "Alladin's cave".

Track 17
1968 to 1981 at the Standard. Unconscious during a petrol spillage - "luck to survive". Three years before he found a job at Midland Air Museum. Doesn't like Coventry - "violated by the council…"

Track 18
"…ripped the heart out of it" - "Now a pseudo Milton Keynes". Supermarkets look the same in any town. Change Coventry - "reconstruct old gates" - "different transport". "Drill Hall was burnt down".

Track 19
Bus system isn't up to much. Would like to see a model village of Coventry pre-war. "Tragedy that so much has not been saved from immediately after the war". Father dead - mother still alive.

Track 20
Father died in hospital. Athiest - Humanist funeral - "I want a jazz funeral". Saw Duke Ellington at the new cathedral.

Track 21
Goes on coach trips - history. Been to Venice. Doesn't like turnstiles in churches.

Time: 62:01

Coventry Lives Oral History Project, date of birth: 1935